Twitter

EU Playing Aid Politics With Aid Policy

The world's poor appear to have become pawns in a political battle over the European Union's (EU) new diplomatic corps.Catherine Ashton, foreign policy chief for the 27-country bloc, is urging that responsibility for development aid should fall within the scope of the European External Action Service (EEAS) that she is in the process of establishing. In recent statements, Ashton has argued that if the EU is to have a successful development policy, it must be compatible with its broader strategies on issues such as security. Yet many observers of European politics suspect that the British baroness is more concerned with seizing control of a sizeable budget than in ensuring that development aid brings tangible benefits to the poor. At 15 billion dollars per year, development aid represents one of the top five areas of spending administered by the EU's executive arm, the European Commission.